Chapter 1

Kyle Whitley was getting tight. He wasn't falling down drunk yet, but he was getting there. That was why he was trying to fumble open the sliding patio door leading out to Paul and Ann's rear deck. It was a nice one, solid as a rock. They'd only had it for a couple of weeks. After having seen it earlier in the evening, Kyle was thinking of building one to replace his back porch too. Paul said it hadn't taken him but four weekends to do the whole thing. Kyle stumbled over the track for the sliding door.

It was February, Valentine's Day. Even in south Texas, that made for pretty cool evenings and he thought the fresh air would help clear his head. He reckoned the party would last at least another couple of hours and that would give him just about enough time to sober up well enough to drive himself and his wife, Peggy, home.

The nearly full glass of Jack and coke he held in his right hand couldn't be left behind. He couldn't remember why, but he'd worked it out in his mind just a few minutes ago. He was satisfied with the knowledge an earlier version of himself had made the decision. He wasn't of a mind to pour the Jack and coke out. Huh-uh! That would be alcohol abuse. He chuckled. He wasn't going to abuse alcohol by pouring it out.

Still chuckling, he finally got through the big glass door and even managed to slide it shut behind him. He ambled to the far right corner and leaned over to put his elbows on the top of the railing. Kyle enjoyed the comfortable slouch for a time. When his back began to hurt after a while, he straightened, pressed his belly against the top rail, and arched his back to relieve stiff muscles. The deck was only a couple feet off the ground, just enough to give a man a feeling of being elevated over the landscape but not far enough to make falling off it something to be afraid of.

He bumped the rail with his belly again, harder this time. He surprised himself by breaking wind in an especially long and disgusting manner. But lordy, lordy, lordy, it sure felt good. Someone snorted a highly opinionated disdain. Kyle was momentarily embarrassed, but the self-consciousness didn't last long in the whisky-induced fog in his mind. The breeze quickly took any foul odor off downwind behind him anyway. He bellied back up to the railing and stretched his arms above his head.

He vaguely felt a hand slipping between two of the vertical supports but it didn't provoke a response. He was going to have to think about it and thinking was difficult just now.

When he felt his zipper being pulled down, he tried to get his hands down to defend that precious region of his body. He banged the heel of his palms on the top of the railing... and that hurt. He spent a few moments massaging each hand. By the time he thought to move away from the railing, his prick had been removed from the protection of his boxers and exposed to the night air. That lasted only a second or two. Almost immediately, his penis was engulfed in something wonderfully hot, wet, and velvety smooth.

He didn't know if the moaning came from his throat or from down below. He decided it didn't matter. What the unseen mouth was doing down there felt damn good. He knew he'd found Peggy. He'd thought she might be out here somewhere.

His wife was one hell of a good cocksucker although she'd learned it virtually from scratch since they got married. He chuckled to himself, remembering their first few uncertain attempts to perform oral sex on one another. It had been fun though... lots of breathless giggles from her and hearty guffaws from him.

Peggy's mouth was a volcanic cavern of pleasure for him. Her tongue slathered all around the helmet-shaped head and probed into the sensitive region beneath. It felt sooooo good. Backing off slightly, Peggy adjusted her grip on Kyle's shaft and came back with her head angled slightly to take more of him inside. Kyle hissed in appreciation as he felt his prick slide down his wife's throat. She only did that occasionally. Usually she couldn't get her throat relaxed enough. When she had a few drinks though...

Ann was late. Not much, just ten minutes or so, but it was an eternity for Kyle. He'd been waiting inside the café where they'd agreed to get together, his fingers drumming on the table as he contemplated the possibility she wouldn't show. They'd only been meeting for a couple of weeks. He wasn't sure how Ann really felt about their series of secret rendezvous. If he was nervous, she probably was too. They both had a lot to lose and neither seemed to know what to do about this thing. It was dangerous to get together like this, but they just had to.

She arrived in a rush, flushed with the fast walk inside from her car and smiling happily at seeing him stand to greet her. She kissed his cheek and received a chaste peck in return. They were in public after all. They were more than good friends but public displays of affection were foreign to both of them. She chatted enthusiastically about what to eat for dinner while she spread samples of a circular over the table for him to see. They settled on one printed on light blue construction paper.

They picked over the remains of the salmon entrée and steamed vegetables. The supposed reason for their meeting having been disposed of, they became awkward with each other. Neither wanted to broach the subject that was really the reason for coming here tonight, but the light had gone out of Ann's eyes. They couldn't avoid the topic any longer.

"Ann," Kyle said softly, "we gotta tell them... we can't go on this way. They're going to find out sooner or later, you know. If they find out by themselves, it's not going to make things any better--it'll just make things worse." He looked down into his coffee cup, wishing it were a crystal ball that could tell him what to do about this thing that had come between him and his best friend's wife. There were no solutions in the dregs of the strong brew that he could see.

"I know," Ann said unsteadily. "I feel so guilty all the time and I know Paul can see it on my face. I can't even bear to look him in the eyes." Kyle nodded. It was the same with him when he was with his wife, Peggy. Then he shook his head.

"It's not something to feel guilty about, Ann," he said, a little more forcefully than he'd planned. "It's not like we set out to go out and have sex one day. What happened... just happened. It's no one's fault." There were tears trickling from Ann's eyes now. She touched a tissue to the corner of each eye in a vain attempt to stem the increasing flow.

"It's just that Paul will be so hurt," Ann said. "I can't face that." Kyle caught her wrists in his hands and pressed her palms together on the tabletop.

"Honey," he said quietly, "he's going to be even more hurt if we don't tell him. Sooner or later, he and Peggy are going to figure out something is going on and then we'll look like criminals or something... you know that," he finished in a coaxing tone. "It's just something we have to do and hope they'll understand. There's no two ways about it."

He released her wrists and patted the backs of her hands affectionately. The physical contact reassured her; it seemed to give her a little strength. She sat up straighter and nodded her acceptance. She bit her lips for a moment then took a deep breath and let it out. Her head came up, her eyes lifted to meet his and a smile grew on her lips. The color left her face in an instant, leaving her alarmingly pale.

"PAUL!" she cried. Kyle swiveled in his seat to see his friend standing nearly at his shoulder. He and Ann had been so intent on their conversation they hadn't seen him come in the café, much less walk up to them.

Kyle looked at Paul closely. Paul didn't look good. Dressed casually, but correctly, he still gave the impression of being slightly disheveled. He looked worried. His complexion was as pasty as Ann's... and his own, Kyle suspected. He'd been caught with his friend's wife, and now there could be hell to pay. He and Ann had no other option now. They had to confess to her husband what they'd done.

"Ann... please, Ann... I've got to know what's going on," Paul said raggedly, his voice breaking twice in the short entreaty. Ann's tears poured from her eyes now. Raising her arms to her husband, she pleaded mutely for him to come to her. He did, contorting his body to slide into the bench seat beside her. He held her as she pressed her face into his shoulder and murmured soft words that had no meaning into her hair.

It was a while before Ann regained control and sat up straight. Kyle sat quietly the whole time, keeping his eyes on the table to give his friends as much privacy as he could. He occupied himself straightening the pile of sample circulars. Paul watched him with growing hostility in his eyes but the printed words on the top leaflet caught his eye before he said anything.

"My birthday?" he said in a confused tone. "That's what this is all about? You're setting up a surprise party?" The colored pages contained an invitation to come help celebrate Paul Anderson's birthday. Paul's face brightened spectacularly, then fell again when Kyle shook his head in negation.

Kyle looked at Ann forcefully, willing her to nerve herself for what was to come.

"Well... we are, but that's only part of the reason we've been seeing a lot of each other," Kyle said. "Ann, we got to do it," he said slowly. She nodded, sighing. Kyle shifted his eyes to Paul.

"Paul," Kyle said slowly, "we have something to tell you that is going to be hard for you to hear... and I don't know exactly how to do it, so bear with me. Please... let Ann and me say what we have to say and then you can do whatever you want to, okay?" His eyes brimming with suspicion, Paul nodded curtly. Kyle breathed in deeply and held it. He let it out and began to speak.

"That's all there is to it?" Paul demanded, his voice crackling with impatience. He looked at his wife. She nodded. "You mean to tell me you started sucking Kyle's cock by mistake at the Valentine's Day party? By mistake? How the hell do you do it by mistake?"

"It was dark, honey," Ann said patiently. She was going over things she'd already explained, but this was her husband and it was important he understood.

"I heard Kyle fart; it sounded just like you do when you've been drinking beer and I didn't stop to think it might be someone else. It wasn't until he called me Peggy that I realized what had happened and I stopped right then..."

"So this sordid little affair started with a big, ol' fart? Is that what you're telling me?" Paul inquired sarcastically, his voice strained. Ann looked up into his eyes and found something there. She doubled up her fist and hit her husband in the ribs--hard.

Paul had a small grin on his face all the same. In the relief that quickly spread around the table though, she and Kyle were soon smiling broadly and all three gave in to chuckles a moment later. It was a few minutes before they could completely stifle them.

"Uh... Paul... look, I'm really sorry this happened," Kyle said sincerely. "I'd give the world if it hadn't happened but we... Ann... I..." Paul waved his hand carelessly at his friend.

"I know you didn't mean it," Paul said. "I can see it on your faces. Besides, I'm well aware Ann has... ahhhhhh... had sex with other men," he said, trying to be delicate about what he was saying. "She was divorced when I met her, for Pete's sake," he added.

"I'm not terribly upset about the "accident" as you put it, but I am upset about what you two put me through the past two weeks." Kyle and Ann looked at each other shamefacedly.

"If you'd just come to me right away," Paul said, "I wouldn't have lost so much sleep and I'd be a lot less stressed out. How come you didn't just tell me?" he asked Kyle and Ann, his eyes traveling from one to the other. Kyle looked uncomfortable.

"Peggy," he said quietly. "Once we told you, we'd have to tell Peggy."

"Oh," Paul replied. The three of them looked at each other glumly.

It wasn't that Peggy Whitley wasn't a good person. Heck, Kyle's wife was the first one to put an arm around a neighborhood kid with a scraped knee; she'd be on your front porch with a pot of chicken noodle soup if you were ill and couldn't get out; and she was generous to a fault with all the neighborhood charity drives. It wasn't any of that.

It's just... well... her mom was one of the original feminists. Kyle wondered from the day he met Peggy's family how that philosophy coexisted with the practical realities of a long marriage to a successful businessman. They'd had five children too. Kyle didn't know how that fit in with Denise's agenda.

Early in his marriage, Kyle had summoned the courage to ask Dan, his new father-in-law, about it and he told Kyle quite candidly that he ignored most of what Kyle's mother-in-law said when he heard her using the movement's odd mantras. He said he reverted to a 19th century philosophy of allowing the woman to run matters relating to the household and let her have sway over all that virtually without comment.

Outside of that, he said they made compromises and agreements or Denise was invited to pack her bags and leave. Kyle was impressed. He also wondered if Denise appreciated the irony of her husband's way of dealing with her political beliefs... or if she knew.

Once or twice, in her role as mother-in-law, Denise said some hurtful and antagonistic things about males in general and Kyle in particular at the dinner table. Dan jumped in and told Denise in no uncertain terms that what she was saying was highly inappropriate and that it needed to cease. Denise's eyes got a little vacant, as if she were going over what she had said, or perhaps she was consulting a reference library that told her what was and was not appropriate commentary according to an agreement of some kind. Each time, Denise apologized to Kyle and the incident passed.

Anyway, Peggy inherited from her mother an attitude that bordered on intolerance for men's foibles and idiosyncrasies. It persisted well into a marriage that produced two wonderful children but it caused their marriage to be a rocky one from time to time. She always came back to Kyle though--almost returning to the woman she'd been when he married her. Lately though, it had taken longer for them to work past the disagreements.

She was intensely competitive too. For instance, though she was slight of stature, it infuriated her when Kyle could easily open a pickle jar she'd wrestled with all day long. In short, she tolerated no differences between herself as a representative of the female portion of the race and Kyle as an unwilling rep for the male half. Sometimes it meant she had to watch a sporting event she really didn't want to, and Kyle had to watch "Steel Magnolias" or something in that vein when it struck Peggy's fancy.

The last time they'd watched that movie, Kyle hadn't been able to fight off his boredom and lack of interest. His snoring finally made it impossible for Peggy to continue watching the movie and she woke him up. After a few sharp comments, she'd flounced off to bed. She'd suggested he sleep on the couch instead of joining her. Sleepy and quite comfortable where he was, Kyle had nodded and stretched out. He'd drifted off again before his wife got upstairs. She hadn't given up ragging on him for that for a long while, but she hadn't made him watch the movie again either.

At times, her attitudes caused more significant conflicts. There was the time, for instance, when Kyle caught her in a fib about where she'd been when someone dented the fender on the car. She'd actually been buying a new dress at the mall, not the supermarket like she told him. At the time, they couldn't really afford for her to buy that dress but she was afraid it wouldn't be there when they could. It had to be that exact dress, so she'd gone back and gotten it after telling Kyle she would not.

Kyle had had his suspicions. There was something odd about the way Peggy was acting when she told him about the supermarket parking lot, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. When the police report they had to submit with the insurance claim gave the lie to her whereabouts at the time of the accident, Kyle asked his wife some pointed questions. He was completely unprepared for the onslaught of verbal volleys that were hurled at him.

When he got mad at the undeserved treatment and fired back, Peggy refused to talk to him for two solid weeks. Just because she wasn't talking didn't stop Kyle though. He fell into the habit of making extemporaneous, rhetorical remarks about the incident whenever the mood struck him.

For instance, he made much of the fact that she wouldn't have gotten into the accident if she hadn't been doing something she'd promised she wouldn't. He didn't get an explanation. Peggy had sworn to herself she would not talk to him for a long time and that period was not yet up. Her self-imposed inability to even respond to her husband made her mad. That she couldn't counter the logic of the remark infuriated her even more. When he got on to her for lying when she professed to loath people who did that, Kyle earned himself another two weeks of the silent treatment.

She'd taken the dress back, only to have Kyle put it on layaway and buy it for her when things calmed down. He ate bologna sandwiches for two months at lunchtime to be able to do it, but he thought it would be worth it. He figured it would be a peace offering, but Peggy went ballistic instead. She hadn't wanted a man to get it for her. She'd wanted to do it herself. The dress was on a rack stuffed in the back of her closet. It had never been worn.

Though they usually got along, the antagonism reached levels Kyle wasn't willing to overlook on several other occasions. He loved her. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, but there were times when he could not put up with her ways.

They separated twice, living apart for three weeks the first time and two months the second time. The second time had been particularly humiliating for Peggy. She'd had to admit she was wrong in throwing a fit about a credit card purchase and accusing him of buying a trinket for one of the floozies in the secretary pool. When the bill came in, it was plain to see it had been for a present for her sister's birthday and the flowers that had been sent in both their names. She'd forgotten. That had been a few months after Todd was born and things had been relatively smooth since then.

No, the reluctance to talk with her about the mistake wasn't because Peggy was a bad person exactly. It's just that she was never inclined to give a man, particularly Kyle, much of a break. They put off telling her as long as they could.

"Peggy," Kyle said as gently as he could, "Ann and I need to talk to you about something that happened at the Valentine's Day party." Kyle was sitting beside Peggy on the couch while Ann sat on the Lazy Boy recliner. Kyle had tried to take her hand but Peggy wouldn't let him. She seldom did. She wasn't a bubblegum popping schoolgirl she usually remarked when he wanted to.

"What is it, honey?" Peggy asked in a sweet voice. "It's not about the party for Paul, is it?" Kyle shook his head and bit his cheek to keep from saying something out of irritation when Peggy turned away.

He'd already told her it was about something to do with the February party and she'd ignored it. His jaw muscles clinched tight. He was trying to be gentle about this but a number of old frustrations had been weighing on his mind over the past few weeks as he tried to find a way to tell his wife what had happened. A mistake shouldn't be this difficult to tell her about. He should be able to trust she would have enough faith in him to believe what he needed to say. Instead...

"Would you like me to freshen your coffee?" Peggy asked Ann solicitously. Ann put her hand over her nearly full cup.

"No... thanks, but this is plenty for me," Ann replied. She looked at me with a question in her eyes. "Do you want to go first, Kyle?" she asked. "You went first with Paul," she added. Peggy looked at me, then back at Ann. Suspicion began to wrinkle her forehead.

"What's this all about?" she asked warily. "Kyle, what did you do?" she asked. The assumption and the accusation were plain to hear in her voice. Kyle shook his head at Ann's suggestion and faced Peggy directly.

"I... Ann and I... we made a bad mistake at the Valentine's Day party," he said hoarsely. He took a deep breath, wet his lips with a nervous tongue, and began again.

Peggy's eyes narrowed as he launched into a hurried explanation of how he'd strolled out on the back deck at Ann and Paul's house while Peggy was out getting her sweater from their car, how he'd bumped into the railing, and about the gases from the chili at lunch had initiated an accidental indiscretion.

Peggy conveyed Ann to the front door courteously, thanking her for coming to talk about the problem. She was all smiles. They were reserved for Ann though. She refused to look at Kyle. When the door closed behind Ann, Peggy turned around and swung an open palm at the side of his face. Startled, Kyle blocked her hand with his forearm and backed up a step to watch her apprehensively. His block had hurt her hand and she rubbed at it with her other one.

"YOU SORRY BASTARD," she screamed at the top of her lungs. "YOU THINK YOU CAN LET THAT HUSSY SUCK YOUR PRICK AND YOU BOTH JUST GET AWAY WITH IT? YOU GOT ANOTHER THINK COMING, DAMN YOU! YOU JUST WAIT!"

Kyle looked at her in amazement. His wife had been angry before, but this was something new. She'd never been so out of control. His eyes narrowed as he watched the furious woman mouth words and threats he'd never have imagined would come out of her mouth. Finally, he'd had enough.

"SHUT UP!" he bellowed. The rumbling roar from deep in his chest overwhelmed her and Peggy stuttered to a stop. Her face was flushed from rage; her eyes glared at him malevolently.

"DON'T YOU TELL ME--" she began. Kyle motioned at the doorway into the hall. Five year old Megan and three year old Todd were watching with tears in their eyes as their parents argued. Peggy turned to them and became a warm and caring mother, changing from a screaming harridan without missing a beat. She hugged her children, telling them everything was all right while glowering at Kyle over their heads.

It wasn't all right and Kyle knew it. He felt nauseous; there was an iciness in the pit of his stomach that entrenched itself and spread. Dimly he knew something priceless had been broken here today. It had been coming for some time but he'd hoped the stress points could be reinforced if only he worked hard enough. He'd hoped it could be mended but today the marriage had splintered badly. He turned away from his wife's scowl and walked into the kitchen for a bottle of water to ease a throat suddenly dry and constricted.

"I'm going to get even," you know," Peggy said in a serene, confiding tone to Kyle. They were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. He was having his second after-dinner cup of coffee while he read the newly arrived ESPN magazine. He'd gotten into the habit of bringing something to read to supper to fill in the time table conversation had consumed before her big blowup.

"What?" Kyle said sharply. It was the first time in three weeks Peggy had addressed any words directly to him that hadn't been absolutely necessary. He hadn't been prepared for Peggy breaking her silence and had no ready reply.

"I'm going to get even with you for letting Ann give you a blowjob," she said, with a malicious gleam in her eye. "Did you think you'd get to have sex with her and I would just sit still and take it?" she asked.

"Peggy," Kyle said wearily, "it wasn't intentional. When Ann and I discovered we weren't with who we thought we were, we pulled back so quick we almost hurt ourselves. I've told you it was a bad mistake, but it was still a mistake. Ann has told you that and Paul has too. Everyone involved except you understands that. Don't you think it's time to let it go?"

"No way, you sorry son of a bitch," Peggy shot back. "You had your fun; now I'm going to have mine," she hissed. Kyle shook his head, despairing of ever convincing his wife he had not intended to have sex of any kind with his best friend's wife.

"That's awfully mature of you," he said sarcastically. Peggy's eyes were thin slits and the fingers of both hands were twisting about each other in her lap as she gave her emotions full rein. Her flushed, mottled features showed the fury that was never very far beneath the surface these days.

"God damn you!" she whispered between tight lips. "I will get my own back... no matter what you say, I know you wanted to get a little "strange" that night. You will regret it Kyle Whitley... you will regret it. Kyle looked at his wife for a long moment before commenting.

"Peggy," he said slowly, almost gently, "will you go with me to some couples counseling? Maybe we can work this out with a professional's help. Would you go?" Peggy's head was shaking before he finished the first sentence but he continued, knowing the offer had to be made.

"Screw you," she said tersely. "There's nothing I need to tell some counselor you'll probably have primed to convince me I'm all wrong and you're all right."

"You find the counselor then," Kyle suggested. "Find anyone you want. I'll go with you, anywhere... anytime." He assured her. Her head swung from side to side violently in refusal. Kyle gave up. It had been a forlorn hope at best.

"Fine!" he said forcefully. "Whatever," he told her. "Well... maybe you can get some counseling on your own," he said. "If you don't find some way to control that anger, you're going to give yourself a heart attack." Kyle went back to his magazine after a moment.

His wife, her face nearly purple with a new rush of blood, stared at him coldly before rising and stalking stiff-legged out of the room. Kyle shook his head as he lowered the magazine to watch her leave.

Sex between Kyle and Peggy had been non-existent since the day he and Ann had admitted their blunder to Peggy. There had been no affectionate moments, no murmured endearments in the bedroom, and precious few periods of even common courtesy between them. Kyle got used to relieving himself of his sexual energies while taking a shower every few days after everyone else was asleep. He didn't like it, but he wasn't about to demand his conjugal rights from Peggy. He didn't know what she did, or if she even felt anything from the lack of sex.

Inexplicably, things got better a few days later after Kyle's suggestion about counseling. Dinner that Thursday evening was a far more cheerful event than it had been for almost a month. Peggy was bubbling over with news from her work and about Mandy and her husband Bill. They were one of the group of couples who gathered every few weeks for a nice barbeque or house party. Peggy knew Mandy from work; their desks were only a few cubicles away from each other.

Older than the rest of the crowd by twenty some years, Mandy and Bill seldom impressed their friends as being old. They had, however, just heard today that they were going to be grandparents for the third time. Peggy was going on and on about the new baby, wondering out loud if it would be a girl this time or not. Kyle watched her bustle around the kitchen, amazed at the transformation in attitude just since breakfast.

After getting the kids to bed, Kyle and Peggy sat together on the couch while they watched the latest installment of "American Idol." Kyle didn't know exactly what to make of the situation but he was willing to go along with the abrupt turnabout. Arguing and fighting all the time sucked the energy right out of a man; maybe it had been sapping her vigor too. He hoped.

When the show was over, Peggy smiled into his eyes and leaned in for a soft kiss.

"I'm sorry, honey," she said gently. "I've been an awful jerk the last few weeks and I realize how horrible I've been behaving."

Kyle blinked. This was almost unprecedented.

"Well... maybe it's a case of it taking two to tango," he said finally. "I'm sorry too," he added. She kissed him again. This time it was a longer, more demanding one. Kyle began to sense a stirring in his groin that he hadn't felt in a month and more.

"I know," she breathed, "but if I hadn't been so unreasonable about you and Ann's mistake, we could have been doing this all month long." She giggled, the girlish laughter gave her a much higher degree of vulnerability than Kyle usually saw in her. It was refreshing. It gave him hope.

"Hmmmmmmm," he murmured in her ear. "I've missed this," he added. "Care to accompany me upstairs?" She giggled again and stood, taking both his hands in hers and drawing him up beside her. She threw her arms around his neck and pressed her body close to his while she kissed him lustily.

Breathlessly, they stumbled up the stairs. Kyle was unbuttoning his shirt as he climbed the steps. Peggy had her dress unzipped before they reached the landing on the second floor. By the time she reached the bed, she was nude except for a bra. Two seconds later, she was sitting on the edge of the bed without a stitch on.

Kyle had been held up locking the bedroom door. They'd been a number of times after the kids started walking when Kyle and Peggy had been surprised by a little face, or faces, appearing around the doorframe.

His clothes flung away and the door secured, Kyle dropped to his knees before his wife and spread her legs a little wider. He looked at his wife's beautiful pussy for a long moment. He never tired of this. Peggy trimmed all her pubic hair into an inch wide strip above her slit and kept the rest of it bare. He loved that. As he told her often, he hated to comb his teeth after going down on her... and he wasn't going to give up giving her oral sex.

Tonight, Peggy was too impatient.

"Come up here," she whispered. "I want you in me." Kyle scrambled to his feet and put a knee on the bed. They bumped heads in their eagerness and burst out chuckling. It felt good. Playfully, Peggy pulled him down beside her, twisting him down on his back. Without a moment's pause, she threw a leg over his hips and crouched over his body, leaning low for a series of urgent kisses.

Scooting backwards on the bed, Peggy pulled her hips high and reached between her legs to find Kyle's hardness. Positioning it at the entrance to her pussy, she eased herself down a bit at a time. Usually, she was so prepared by Kyle's oral attentions at this point that she could handle his cock driving swiftly into her but she'd foregone all foreplay tonight. Still, it was only a couple of seconds before her vagina had opened up and allowed her husband to begin pushing up from the bed's surface.

Peggy didn't want anything fancy tonight. Once Kyle's dick was firmly seated inside her, she began to rock her hips back and forth in a fast "Cowgirl" ride on her husband's sex. She began breathing fast and shallow almost immediately. It had been a long time since they'd last made love and both had a lot of pent up energy.

Cupping a breast in each hand, Kyle kneaded them firmly, enjoying the yielding resilience of her sensitive mounds. He twirled the blood-engorged nipples between his thumb and forefingers, pulling carefully on them when Peggy seemed ready. He tried to urge Peggy to lower herself so he could suck on her nipples but she resisted. She wasn't willing to slow or stop the rhythm she'd built up riding his cock in a simple back and forth motion.

She rode him hard, plunging her hips down hard and thrashing her lower body around in a tight circle to rub her pussy against Kyle's groin. He couldn't move very well. He tried to push his cock deeper into Peggy's hot cunt but he didn't have any leverage. After a while, he let Peggy do all the work. There was no style to what she was doing. It was simple animal lust. Two animals who'd gone without sex for a long time pushed and shoved at one another, each straining for a long withheld release.

It was only a few minutes. Kyle had tried to get into a better rhythm, timing Peggy's plunges with his own thrusts, but there was no way. Before he could begin working with her, Peggy was beginning the high-pitched keening that preceded one of her better orgasms.

"UUUUUUEEEEEEIIEIEIEEEEUUNGGGH!" Peggy groaned as she slammed her pussy down on Kyle's groin. She stopped in mid-movement, whipped into frantic motion seconds later, and pushed her head back to stare at the ceiling as she reveled in the sensations spreading through her body.

"Unnngh, unnngh, unnngh, unnngh, unnnnnngh," she grunted, slamming herself down onto her husband. She was delirious, hardly aware of what she was doing. She was intent only on making the approaching climax as intense and long lasting as she could. Abruptly she froze at the top of her stroke, lowered herself in tiny increments until Kyle's cock filled her completely and there she stayed. A series of tiny tremors, uncontrollable muscle contractions, swept over her... and she collapsed onto her husband's body. It was done. She lay there gasping for air, suddenly exhausted. Kyle waited.

"Did you cum?" Peggy asked when she had enough breath to speak.

"Huh-uh," Kyle replied cheerfully. He often refused to let himself get off in their first sex in an evening, preferring to keep the ability to give her--and himself--a second, and sometimes a third round of pleasure.

"Mmmmmmmmm," Peggy said dreamily, still panting a little. They lay there, still coupled by virtue of his hard penis still trapped within her vagina.

Peggy pushed her hips up, disengaging her sex from his and dropped at Kyle's side. Grinning at him in the dim light from behind the closed bathroom door, she took his cock in her left hand and began to jack him off. She worked at it hard for a few minutes, moving her fist deftly up and down the shaft. Smoothly, she shifted her body, worming her way up until she could lock her lips on his.

"Cum for me," she whispered. "I want to watch you cum." She worked her hands up and down smoothly, her own juices providing all the lubrication necessary. He was uncircumcised. Just the motion of her hand sliding up and down the shaft pulled his foreskin down over the glans and across that sensitive area on the underside just behind the bulbous head. Peggy was good at what she was doing. She loved to see him spray his seed into the air. Kyle had no idea why she found it so fascinating, but she was. He'd learned to live with it.

She worked faster, a little more firmly, urging his body to give up its resistance and release its sperm to her ministrations. He tried to hold off but her soft hands were irresistible. A very few minutes after she started, tightening muscles in his lower abdomen and a hot, flowing sensations deep inside told him his time was near.

"Peggy..." he warned. Her hand moved faster, sweeping up from the base of his cock to slide over and very briefly cup in her palm a glans now slickened with precum as well as her remaining vaginal juices. Up and down in a hard rhythm, she worked his cock around in small circles to increase his pleasure.

Suddenly, he could hold off no longer. He came in a long, shuddering orgasm, spouting a thick white spray that flew high before falling back to his belly. Peggy's hand was quickly covered with slick slime. She bent to taste her husband, licking the cum from the back of her hand and the webbing between thumb and forefinger. His second eruption came quickly after the first, pumping only a few inches upward before Peggy's enthralled eyes. A third squirt of thin semen mixture gushed out from the slit in the head of his cock, flowing rather than shooting out. Peggy knew this for a sign his spewing was nearly at an end.

Leaning closer, she worked to milk out the last few drops from his balls. She wanted to see it as it happened. When she had the final droplets, she squeegeed them off with her fingers and deposited them in her mouth. Teasingly, she stuck out her tongue to show her husband what she had collected there. It was too dark for him to really see it, but he appreciated the thought anyway. He nodded, too breathless to speak. He hardly noticed his wife's lips never touched his cock in all the time she'd had her head in his lap.

"I hope you know I wouldn't really have done anything to get even with you," Peggy said tentatively.

Kyle mumbled something that sounded comforting. He patted her bare shoulder to add a little more to that impression. They'd taken a leisurely shower after the sex. Kyle had wanted and tried to coax Peggy into more sex in the bathtub, but she hadn't wanted any. It had been a long day, she said. Tomorrow was the start of the weekend and they would have all the time in the world then. He'd agreed reluctantly.

"I mean... it would just be the wrong thing to do," she continued drowsily. "I just couldn't." Kyle patted her shoulder and turned on his side, pressing against her as she turned also. A moment later, they were "spooning" happily in the afterglow of the sex. Kyle was at peace, pleased the bad times were over. He was happy Peggy had backed away from her position on the subject of his and Ann's "indiscretion." It wasn't often Peggy would to this. He could only remember one time when she'd given in on something like this. Usually...

His eyes snapped open in the darkness. The last time Peggy had given in so abruptly without explanation had been when they'd only been married a year and a half. She'd wanted that blue dress so bad, even though they couldn't afford to buy it. She'd told him it would be wrong for her to go ahead and buy it. It would have been the wrong thing to do, she'd said.

He closed his eyes wearily. Nothing had changed. Peggy had only changed her tactics. The rage he'd seen in her eyes a few days ago was still there, simmering just beneath the surface. She'd only banked the fire a little to put him off his guard, and maybe the strain of not having sex for more than a month had gotten to her too. He was so tired. He slept but when he woke, he did not feel rested.

He couldn't let it just lay there in his mind. He wasn't a man who liked confrontations but he always spoke his mind.

"Are you going shopping at the mall today?" Kyle asked his wife. There was some small sarcasm in his voice. Peggy had been about to open the front door. It was 7:30 and she'd just make it to work on time if the Friday morning traffic wasn't too heavy.

"Well... no, I hadn't planned on it," she replied. "Why? Is there something you need?" She was looking at Kyle quizzically. He took a bite of the toaster pastry and swallowed it before replying.

"No... I was just thinking about something," Kyle said. "The last time you told me you wouldn't do something because it would be the wrong thing to do, you had a fender-bender in the Prairie View Mall parking lot."

Peggy's brow furrowed for a bit, then her jaw tightened. Her lips thinned to a stiff line. A hot anger blazed from her eyes as she realized what he was referring to. She was quiet for a long moment. She let out a long breath of air. Kyle could see in her eyes an admission all her work over the past few days had been lost.

"Payback is a bitch, Kyle Aaron Whitley," she said quietly. The calm with which she delivered the pronouncement made her hostility all the more palpable.

"I will get you back for having that slut give you a blowjob. Mark my words, hubby dear, I will have some satisfaction before I get this behind me."

With that, Peggy opened the door and slid through the doorway in a quick move. She shut the door firmly behind her.

Kyle stood silent, watching the door to see if his wife would come back to deliver more warnings. He was filled with an intense feeling of foreboding. Peggy would not let this go. She wouldn't forgive; she wouldn't agree to a separation--she didn't like the two they'd already had--so they could get a breathing space. She'd already refused counseling and she was intent on getting revenge for what she obviously thought of as his unfaithfulness. He didn't know what he could do to encourage her to forgive and let this be. He just didn't know.

Things got better, albeit very slowly. There wasn't much sex, and there was no love making, but Kyle and Peggy found ways to be more civil to each other. They couldn't completely disguise the tension between them though. Three-year-old Todd began wetting the bed again and both adults attributed it to the stress Todd could dimly recognize, but certainly couldn't understand, between his parents.

Kyle and Peggy found ways to cooperate and appear cheerful in front of their children. They kept their arguments quieter and behind closed doors. The number of Todd's "accidents" dwindled, but did not disappear. Nor did the dispute over the Valentine's Day mistake that Peggy steadfastly referred to as Kyle's infidelity.